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firemonkey
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12 May 2020, 4:43 pm

Earliest for which I have a vague memory. Johnson vs Goldwater 1964 .

Earliest my father has mentioned re me and politics ." I remember you watching a lot of television and rushing into the
kitchen to share the news of the Kennedy election in the fall of 1960'."


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dragonsanddemons
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12 May 2020, 5:11 pm

Hmm, I think the earliest political-related thing I remember was when my class pretend-voted in the Bush/Gore election, when I was probably in about second grade. I didn't really know anything about either candidate at the time, but I had a feeling (don't know why) that Bush would win, so I went with him.


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Sahn
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12 May 2020, 5:12 pm

Polish workers demonstrating in the early 80s. Solidarity, Lech Wałęsa.

CND Protests at Greenham Common military base in 1982.



Velorum
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12 May 2020, 5:16 pm

Earliest one that springs to mind is watching Harold Wilson on our small black and white TV in the 1960's making an announcement on the devaluation of sterling - the one were he said that it would not affect the value of the "pound in your pocket". Which was nonsense of course - but he was a politician after all.


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kraftiekortie
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12 May 2020, 5:36 pm

The civil rights marches in the 1960s.



kokopelli
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12 May 2020, 5:42 pm

My earliest clear political memory is my sister (who was in high school at the time) expressing discomfort about the Cuban Missile Crisis. I would have been six at the time.



ASPartOfMe
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12 May 2020, 5:52 pm

JFK assassinated.


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I love belko61
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12 May 2020, 7:49 pm

1979 Ken Taylor helping get Americans out of Iran
80s. My earliest clear memory was the Falklands War, the invasion of Grenada. After that I read about US & communists, Central & South American politics - particularly with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Memories of defectors during Olympics.
Political influences on unions, law history regarding women's rights. Tiananmen Square, Thatcher, Gaddafi, Gorbachev, Yeltsin.



techstepgenr8tion
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12 May 2020, 8:23 pm

The earliest thing that really caught my attention, I would have been five at the time, was the Akili Lauro and the murder of Leon Klinghoffer. I just remember them showing pictures of what looked like a retired professional in a wheelchair, hearing that he'd been shot several times and thrown into the sea, and for some reason the news channel played an image of the breakwater behind the boat stating that it was an image of the water after he'd been thrown in. I really didn't try to make that much sense of it but it did fire off some questions, and one of them would have been 'What compels adults to that sort of behavior?'.


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CarlM
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12 May 2020, 8:53 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:
JFK assassinated.


Same age here, same first political memory.


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lostonearth35
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12 May 2020, 9:06 pm

I don't have any distinctive early memories except that the Russians were evil and wanted to nuke the planet while the American were extremely good and wanted to save us by nuking the planet, or something :roll:



Meistersinger
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12 May 2020, 9:36 pm

The assasination of JFK.



Last edited by Meistersinger on 12 May 2020, 11:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

vermontsavant
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12 May 2020, 10:45 pm

President Reagan being shot is one,I'm not sure how much of the Carter administration I remember,very fuzzy,but I do vaguely remember Carter.

One thing my parents told was a story I don't remember but we as a family met Brian Lamb the founder of C-SPAN at a clam bake on Cape Cod,maybe 78 79,before he started C-SPAN.


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naturalplastic
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13 May 2020, 12:12 am

The smell of pine was always in the air in that cabin in Colorado Springs that the family was staying at while we visited the grandparents that summer.

I was five, and was sitting on the floor in front of the TV set while pushing a toy truck around while the big people were all sitting on the chairs behind me, all laughing, and yakking their grown up talk. Then Dad suddenly called my name and asked ME which of those two guys on the TV screen I liked better. I looked up the TV and saw first one, then other,of two guys in suits and ties. One guy reminded me of dad. Young, for a grown up, and rather good looking. The other guy was kinda ugly and had shifty eyes. When the camera switched back to the good looking guy who reminded me of Dad, I pointed to him, and said "I like him better". And I went back to pushing the toy truck around. My parents and the other relatives all laughed uproariously...because that was the guy my parents supported in that election.

The year was 1960. And the two men were John F. Kennedy, and Richard M. Nixon. And mom and dad supported JFK.



The_Walrus
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13 May 2020, 1:37 am

Probably either 9/11 (if that counts) or the build up to the Iraq War.



Karamazov
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13 May 2020, 2:03 am

Either Gulf War Syndrome or the Cash for Questions scandal: I can just about remember both, but not which way round they were.